


Patience

by evil_bunny_king



Series: Of the Sun [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Balcony Scene, Choices choices, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels her gaze like a weight against his back as he glances at the snow-covered peaks. As he works the first of his questions to his lips, preparing to pick at the tangle that beats in his chest. </p><p>He speaks before he turns. </p><p>"Who were you before this?"</p><p>---</p><p>Solas takes her to the balcony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patience

There is a knot in Solas’ chest.

It has been there since the murder of Wisdom – since before then, probably, if he cared to examine it, but certainly it sits there now: unyielding and aching, and wrapped around the idea of the woman who stands in his doorway.

“Inquisitor,” he starts, rising as Lavellan enters the room. “I was…”

Just about to find you, he almost admits. Was thinking of you, thinking of us, and the question that has laid between us since the moments stolen in the depths of a dream.

The knot tightens at that. Swells, just a fraction, and he’s uncertain if he can distinguish it from the beat of his heart in his chest, the flutter of his pulse as he watches her step deliberately to his side.

They are in the rotunda. The day is late, but not late enough that the libraries have been abandoned, and Pavus’ voice rolls clearly over the creaking caws of the crows, a reminder of the audience gathered in the room’s upper tiers. Her expression is pensive as she approaches, a sentiment he is sure he mirrors - controlled but still evident, a crease to her brow. He considers that, as he glances around the room. Glances at his research, his fresco, long since abandoned for fruitless internal debate, and the questions burn anew in his mind, the ones that have been plaguing him the long days since he’d returned from the Exalted Plains.

They need to talk. They cannot do so here, though.

Her quarters, then.

“Do you have a moment?”

The walk does not take long. She falls casually into place beside him, only blinking when he steers them towards her quarters, and he’d marvel at her composure if not for the flutter of her fingertips at her sides, the only tell she gives that she’s nervous. Her expression warms as she steps through the doorway to her chambers, though - a telling quirk to her lips, tucked away just as quickly, and then they are in the corridor, winding their way up the stairs of her annex. Across warm carpeting, the laden desk, the ludicrous frills of her Orlesian bed and then the balcony, a breeze dragging thin fingers through their clothing and the setting sun etching the mountains in gold.

He feels her gaze like a weight against his back as he glances at the snow-covered peaks. As he works the first of his questions to his lips, preparing to pick at the tangle that beats in his chest.

He speaks before he turns.

“Who were you before this? Has the mark changed you, in any way? Your beliefs, your morals, your – spirit?”

When he looks to her she is watching him, drifting towards the rail of the balcony. The sunset casts the red of her hair alight.

She tips her head to the side and considers the question; considers the anchor. Sharp eyes flick back to his, a tease of a smile curling her lips, and she answers: “Not that I’ve noticed. But would I be able to tell if I had?”

He lets out a loose laugh, because yes, “that’s an excellent point” – of course she wouldn’t - but she is not done, continuing to consider him with a focus beneath her smile.

“Why do you ask?”

He takes a breath.

_For how else have you come to be?_

“It is simply that you have shown a wisdom that I haven’t seen since…” He breaks eye contact, assembles the familiar lie; feels her trace how he falters. “…My deepest travels into the ancient memories of the fade.” He allows himself a wry smile. “You are not what I expected.”

She blinks, slowly, deliberating. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“No, it’s not-” He huffs, knowing he has stepped into her gentle trap. He forces his gaze back to her eyes. “Most people are predictable. Yet you have shown subtly in your actions, a wisdom that goes against everything I expected. If the Dalish could raise one such as you - have I misjudged them?”

She pauses, again, glancing away as she thinks it through. Looks back to the mark, flexing her fingers into a fist around it, and when she speaks her words are considered - that patience, that she reserves for him.

“Not… entirely.” She rubs her thumb across her palm and continues, stroking the anchor: “we do what we can to preserve, to foster, what is left of our people, but we make mistakes, as well. The ‘flat ears’ and the ‘Dalish’ - it's petty pride, petty prejudice, taken too far. A legacy of our ‘exalted’ past, perhaps, and the desperation that followed it, but still, we shouldn’t - stoop to it.”

But then she looks up. Cocks an eyebrow, and there is the challenge he is familiar with, that lightens the foreign lilt of her voice. “I _am_ Dalish, though. We aren’t completely lost, then, are we?”

Lost. He has been caught on that question.

“Perhaps not,” he responds, and a laugh bubbles in his chest. “And perhaps you are right.”

The Dalish do not leave their aravels, though. The Dalish do not question the veneer of their myths and half-remembered beliefs, press against the ‘truths’ of their small worlds, try to peer beyond. The more that he learns of her, the more evident those facts become.

“Most people act with such little understanding of the world." This suddenly seems so simple. "But not you.”

She looks at him, then. With something less controlled sparking in her gaze, something almost like hope in the slant of her brow and that knot around his heart unravels a little bit more, foolish and light in a way he'd thought he'd forgotten.

“What does this mean, Solas?”

He swallows.

“It means,” and for once he is speaking only the truth, albeit a laughably small one, laced in irony and affection and that hope, frightened and frightening all at once (he can no longer deny it. He is unsure he still wants to). “That I have not forgotten the kiss.”

A brilliant smile crosses her lips and helplessly, recklessly, he finds himself returning it.

She steps forward. Eyes locked on his, chin tilted up, so ever slightly, in a request, in a challenge - and he takes a step back. He's taken this too far, there are other reasons they should not, that they cannot; there are still-

But she follows him. Wraps her arms behind her back in a mimicry of his reticence, expression innocent, save for the intent that burns in her gaze and he feels himself succumbing - the inevitable fall of a world into its sun.

She steps again, and he does not retreat, this time. She steps before him and he sways closer, almost leans in - before catching himself and turning to leave, even as it feels as if he would leave a part of himself behind in the process.

She catches him in turn. Chooses him, for all the times he’s warned her otherwise.

His final decision is a surprisingly easy one to make.

“It would be kinder in the long run” for her, for himself, for they both know he can’t stay, that this can only be temporary, “but losing you…”

He sinks into her kiss. Wraps her close, as if that could bind them there; swears his love like an oath against her lips.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

It is the only truth he can offer and he'll offer it gladly.

**Author's Note:**

> So this a rewritten version of a oneshot I had in my 'Solitude' collection. Elements of the original remain, but not that much. I think I've settled on my canon. For the time being, at least. :x Last time I visit this scene for a long while, I promise.


End file.
